Treating foot sores or ulcerations, particularly diabetic foot ulcerations, is important. Failure to properly treat such sores or ulcerations may result in amputation of the affected foot. Unfortunately, such treatment is often difficult to achieve. At least some of the problems related to such treatment, as well as some proposed solutions, are discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,682,497, the background of which is herein incorporated by reference.
In some instances, the use of an orthopedic boot can help facilitate healing of a foot. In order to do so, the boot should be effective in promoting healing, should be easy to use to promote use by a patient, and should be affordable to facilitate a patient's access to it. To facilitate healing, the boot should reduce the weight placed on the sole of the foot, and minimize or prevent flexing of the foot within the boot in order to minimize shearing forces on any sores or ulcerations. To promote use by a patient, the boot should be easy to put on and take off, and, to the extent that it can be adjusted, be easy to adjust.
Although attempts have been made to provide effective methods and apparatus, methods and apparatus that provide an optimum balance between healing effectiveness, usability, and affordability for every patient have yet to be achieved. As such, the present disclosure provides methods and apparatus that can help achieve such a balance for at least some patients.